Doug Sahm's final studio album, The Return of Wayne Douglas, was released not long after his death from a heart attack in Taos, New Mexico hotel room in 1999. The name of the disc was a reference to an alias he'd used to release a cool 1970 Mercury honky-tonk 45, and as you'd expect with a title like that the album itself was pure deep-fried country music from beginning to end. Not surprisingly, Sahm, like a lot of people, was completely disenchanted with the pop and rock sounds that were becoming the hallmark of hit country records and used this track to blow off a little steam.

Monday, July 30, 2012

When I posted about the mysterious Sir Douglas Quintet single "Michoachan" earlier in Doug Sahm month, I didn't realize there was going to be so much back story. I decided I would go to the source and discuss it with its co-writer, legendary songwriter/singer/producer/A&R man/svengali/pied piper/raconteur/garbage man Kim Fowley. The original blog post can be found here.

Kim Fowley (in the Western shirt) with among others Del Shannon, Bruce Johnston and Gene Vincent. From his website.

Interviewing Kim Fowley means staying out of Kim Fowley's way, so I just tried not to interrupt him, since every time I did he went skidding on some new fascinating tangent.

KIM FOWLEY: Michoacan was written by Atwood Allen and [myself]. Atwood Allen was the Electric Ice Man from
San Antonio, and his grass that he cultivated and blended and rolled into
joints was apparently legendary. I don’t
smoke dope so I have no idea if it’s true, but according to gravevine legend
Bob Dylan smoked some of Atwood’s blend and thought it was Doug Sahm’s blend
and then liked Doug Sahm’s music more than he normally would, because he thought
his abilities as a tobacconist cum blender of psychedelics gave him a different
status. And then when he found it it was
Atwood Allen’s, possibly he didn’t like Doug Sahm as much. Now, this is just a story that floats around
ballrooms in Austin. It is possibly
untrue. It’s possibly true. I’m not in an Austin ballroom and I wasn’t there
when the rumors started. Have you ever
heard that rumour before?

DR. FILTH: I read somewhere that
“michoacan” is a codeword for really good marijuana.

FOWLEY: Well, I know that it grows there. In Michoacan itself.
Apparently that’s the Carolinas of marijuanadom. I’ve never been
there. I remember, I walked into Tom Ayres’ home and this Atwood Allen said,
“Hey, buddy – you want a joint?” And I told him I didn’t smoke. So he said, “Hey Tom, I thought you said this
guy wrote lyrics. I want to write a song about Michoacan, and I’ve got the
music but this motherfucker doesn’t know shit about dope.”

So I said, “Hey motherfucker, I had a lesbian mother and an
opium addict father to contend with so I understand your shit. I was there when Robert Mitchum got busted
for marijuana. My father was trying to score opium in the same house. Don’t
fuck with me, motherfucker, I can write the shit! I wrote shit for the Byrds and I grew up in a criminal household!”
Something to that effect.

KF: Yeah, just to shut me up, probably. So he started smoking
dope and I said, “Play your shit” and about ten minutes later it was done. And
he said, “My god, this guy’s like a redneck!” And I said, “Look, I produced
Gene Vincent. And he was on morphine! And I understood that guy, so I can
understand your tiny little drug habit.” So about 10 minutes later the thing
was done and Doug Sahm showed up later in the evening when I wasn’t there and
Atwood sang it, and he called him “hoss” and “bro” and “dude” and he learned
the fucking thing, and there was a movie called Cisco Pike being made - the original title was The Dealer, which would have been a better title than
Cisco Pike. Did you ever see the movie?

DrF: Yes.

KF: It’s a really good movie isn’t it? Kris Kristofferson’s
first starring role. It was supposed to be the second coming of Easy Rider. And
this song was going to be the new “Born to Be Wild”. But it didn’t at all become “Born
to Be Wild”. I saw the movie and it sounded like mariachi horns.

KF: The song was covered four times. I covered it as a producer
with Scorpion, on MNW records in Sweden, later purchased by Universal.

Swedish psych/prog band does a German polka version of Tex-Mex
song with lyrics by a California freak. The mind reels.

KF: And then
Atwood Allen had a thing called Atwood Allen the Electric Iceman, Bossier City
was the b-side. [I have so far been unable to uncover a copy of this 45 - anybody got one?]And then there was Rocky and the Border Kings, doing "Michoacan". The b-side was "Gulf of Mexico", which I thought was an amazing song. Rocky was
Jimmy Stallings, who was also J.J. Light, who also was a member of the Quintet
for a minute. Did you know that?

DrF: No. I mean, I knew that J.J. Light was in the Quintet, but I had no idea that he was Rocky. I love that J.J. Light LP.

KF: He was from Farmington New Mexico. He had a Mexican mom and
an Anglican dad and he worked in a laundry there. The Hollywood Argyles found him
and brought him back to LA in 1960 or 1961. He became Gene Thomas – he was a
funny Gene Thomas. Gene Thomas had “Sometime”, which was another Chicano-kind-of-San-Antonio record, but no one knew what Gene Thomas looked like here, so we passed
him off as Gene Thomas.

KF: So the fifth version of the song was Kris Kristofferson – he
did a live album in Cuba or some weird place. It’s a blue album cover, and it’s
the only live Kristofferson album. And so he did it, but he changed the lyrics
– naughty naughty shame on you – and so I thought, “well, he’s a great
songwriter”. But his words were worse than mine. He didn’t take credit but he
still changed them.Is that five versions?
Read them back.

I was unable to verify the Cuban live album, but here'sthe studio version from Shake Hands with the Devil

KF: And not one of them charted. I think the Kristofferson album
charted. Nothing else charted. It’s probably a hit song, and someday someone
will do a new version of it, some new Tijuana brass thing . .

Dr.F: Tijuana dubstep.

KF: Yeah! Why not? They’ll hear it, and people will smoke dope and say, “Shit! Where did this come from?” I mean, there’s
something great about it. It’s like my
song “The Trip”. God, that thing has been covered and used and banned just
about everywhere.

Joe "King" Carraso and the Crowns

KF: At one point Sahm was going to produce Joe "King" Carrasco and
the Crowns, and I met him in the bathroom of the baseball game they always have
on Sundays at South by Southwest. They end the conference and
everybody goes and plays baseball. Doug
Sahm was the coach. And so I said,
“Here’s Michoacan and some other shit for Joe "King" Carrasco.” And he
reluctantly took it, but he probably threw it in the trash, because Doug never
understood how I was able, as this West Coast moron, to write authentic shit that
he could sing. Because he was a great songwriter and he didn’t cover too many
people.

DrF: He did not cover too
many contemporaries, no.

KF: No, he wanted to find some
toothless black guy from 400 years ago and give him a shot.

This interview expanded to include several other topics, and we will see more of it in the very near future. Kim Fowley would like to let you know that he has just recorded a new release with Snow Mercy called Live in Overdrive. "We did it in an hour. It's one of the dumbest records you've ever heard. It's STUPID. Which is the key word in rock and roll. It's really stupid, and if you guys are smoking dope, jacking off, or robbing cars, this is the record to do it to. Everything good about Paul and Paula and Dale and Grace, you will find on this piece of trash, on steroids. Be sure and check it out. It's on iTunes."

Sunday, July 29, 2012

The shiner Doug's sporting in the photo above was the result of a fractious 1973 run-in with police in Balcones Heights, just outside of San Antonio. Doug was enjoying an evening out with some friends at La Rosa Mexican Restaurant, when some clearly over-aggressive policing led an officer to ask who owned the gold and black Oldsmobile Cutlass with the California license plates. When Doug volunteered that he owned the car in question, the cop asked him to step outside while his fellow officers stayed inside to hassle Sahm's companions in the hopes of getting a low level drug bust. A moment later, drummer George Rains looked outside and witnessed a cop take Sahm, handcuffed at the time, and slam his head into the hood of his car. The police never did find any drugs on Sahm or in his car, so they settled for a charge of public intoxication, but that was quickly thrown out of court. The whole incident was a catalyst for Sahm's decision to relocate to the friendlier town of Austin.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

So much ado about the new Batman flick. I’ve only seen snippets of the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s Batman movies on TV, and it’s there that my preferred caped crusader resides, in the Fox series that pow’ed and wowed its way from ’66 to ’68—and has been roundly scorned by most everyone ever since.

Count me among the minority that finds the cartoonish crime-fighting of Adam West’s light knight way more fun than the ominous doings of his big-screen successors. (It comes down to degrees of cultural saturation; the Bee Gees have always made good music, but when the Sat Night Fever OST shoved it down my throat, I gagged. Same with “dark,” “edgy” characters. Right now, enough is too much.) How could anyone not dig the show? The theme music. Producer William Dozier’s earnest-citizen narration. And the villains! Most of them were (great) actors who’d been in the game since vaudeville and could really juice their roles—Burgess Meredith’s quacking Penguin (“Peng-gy” to his gal pals), Vincent Price’s chrome-domed Egghead, Gorshin’s super-sillyess Riddler, Newmar’s Catwoman, Victor Buono’s King Tut. Only Milton Berle’s Louie the Lilac disappointed, Miltie giving the role a humorless, menacing tone more like contemporary baddies. Still, the Louie the Lilac arc amazes: he planned to steal all the flowers from Gotham’s Central Park to ruin the hippies’ summer lovefest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHv4ek3f3bI).

But here’s the thing. It’s not just the discreet charm of camp, cheesy costumes and a welcome lack of buffness that makes the show cool. The TV Batman was the avatar of much of the culture that’s followed it. One of its cornerstones was the abiding impotence of Police Chief O’Hara (Stafford Repp) and Commissioner Gordon (Neil Hamilton), whose first impulse—whether the crime was Ethel Merman’s Lola Lasagna cornering the elbow-macaroni market or pigeon droppings from a skyscraper gargoyle striking an old lady in the street—was to reach for the Bat-phone. This same riff of ineffectual bureaucrats preceded by five years Dirty Harry’s taking the law into his own hands, and has shaped the popular image of rogue cops from Fred Dryer’s bludgeon-first-read-Mirandas-later Sgt. Rick Hunter to cue-ball Chiklis’ Detective Vic Mackey and beyond.

From incompetent civic managers to a general distrust of all things gub’ment is a short hop. Hence, TV Batman led straight to Rick Perry, the Tea Party and some folks’ unshakeable faith in the Great Man theory of job creation and budget balancing. Reagan never appeared on the show. He didn’t need to. Ka-pow!!!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

In the late 90s, Doug Sahm spent some time occasionally sitting in on steel guitar on gigs with his old pal Alvin Crow & The Pleasant Valley Boys. In fact, one of my fondest musical memories is seeing Sahm play steel for Crow all evening at a show at a honky-tonk called the Broken Spoke in south Austin back in about 1996 or so. As I recall, the entire evening Crow referred to Sahm as Wayne Douglas, which is the pseudonym Sahm used on a Mercury country 45 released in 1970, which is audible here. In fact, at the end of this performance Crow can be heard acknowledging Sahm's performance by enthusiastically calling out "Sir Wayne!"

I'm not 100% sure but I think he may have been playing lead guitar, as opposed to steel, at this particular gig, which was recorded in Dallas in January 1997.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

A 2nd line to honor Uncle Lionel Batiste will be held in NYC on Thursday, July 26th at 6:30 PM. The parade will be led by The Stooges Brass Band! Gather at Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center and bring white handkerchiefs, 2nd line umbrellas and large pictures of Uncle Lionel, if you have them.

Here's (sort of) three more from the Rough Cuts LP. As requested, the tale of the Sir Douglas Quintet's trip to Amersterdam, and for historical purposes, "Sir Doug's Recording Trip". But perhaps most interestingly, we're also bringing you "Funky Side of Your Mind". Expect this post to ramble like a five minute mid-tempo Sir Douglas Quintet song.

As I've said in earlier posts this month, once Doug got to writing songs, some of his favorite topics were Lone Star Beer, Texas, and his own personal history, which sure did wig him out when he thought about what went down. No one could romanticize his own life in as charming, goofy, and wonderful way. "Sir Doug's Recording Trip" is his personal history, from being on record from the time he was five years old, to hooking up with the Quintet, to meeting Huey Meaux in Houston, to
having some chart success, to the moment of recording "Sir Doug's Recording Trip".

Sir Doug and Huey Meaux on a recording trip
taken from http://theragblog.blogspot.com*

"Hello Amsterdam" picks up the story where "SDRT" leaves off, with the Quintet really getting ready to go to Europe from their base in San Francisco. He sounds dissatisfied with the late 60s California scene and it sounds like maybe he's thinking about living on the "Urpean Cont'nent". He would of course settle for going back to Texas.

Apparently the sessions that eventually made up the Rough Cuts album were, um, rather loose. Many of the cuts fade up and fade down - arrangements created on the fly, minimal repeat takes, the usual crazy-artist-in-the-thralls-of-his-own-muse-at-the-expense-of-professionalism wondrousness.

One cut that features both a fade up AND a fade down is "Leaving Kansas City", a remarkably evocative (particularly for a lifelong Texas boy) ramble about getting out of the middle of America for stranger pastures. When I first discovered this song I had just "left Kansas City" (actually Columbia, MO) after 30 years, "bouncing around in space until I found my place". Sir Doug and I share a birthday, and considering his own love for zodiacal connectivity, I'm going to go a little hippie on y'all and admit that I've always wondered if it wasn't that shared birthdate, among other things, that connected me to his music so strongly.

You can hear Doug call out changes and instructions throughout the song as it lilts along over particularly strong and compassionate ("Crossroads" worthy!) DS vocal. But they obviously don't have an ending for it. I think that Augie Meyer must play the second guitar on this recording, since there's no piano or organ to be heard. On Rough Cuts the song fades after its little whistling coda, and that's that, a perfectly wonderful farewell-to-Mercury-records-last-song-on-the-album kind of a thing. But there's a full version of the take, or fuller, that is as far as I know only available on the Edsel She's About a Mover: The Best of the Sir Douglas Quintet Crazy Cajun Recordings CD (I think there's a one-and-two CD version) that continues past the fade, and into an otherwise unreleased pounder called "Funky Side of Your Mind".

As "Leaving Kansas City"'s chord changes go on and on and the band tries to find its way home, it sounds to me like drummer Johnny Perez has a sudden inspiration, as he switches from a country backbeat to a straight up pounding rock doubletime. He calls for the song "Funky Side of Your Mind", to which Doug responds, "Nah, man." But Perez insists. "It'll work!" And into it they go, rocking out acoustic, and Doug fully commits, bringing his big "She's About a Mover" bellow out and transforming the wistfulness of "Leaving Kansas City" into a sudden rush of fiesty defiance, which to me sounds like the sort of thing he was looking for when he decided to "leave Kansas City" in the first place.

All-in-all a great lost look at the interband dynamics of the Quintet and one of the best SDQ recordings of the 70s.

And, what the heck, to wrap up and because I mentioned the whole shared birthday thing (and because it's kind of the same song anyway) here's one I never fail to play on November 6, wherever I am - from Together After Five, the "One Too Many Mornings/Got to Sing a Happy Song" medley. While it's always nice to think of all the time I've wasted (and it's not wasted) with Doug Sahm, it's the verse that starts at the 4:00 mark that always gets me.

Friday, July 20, 2012

If you ever want to immerse yourself in some of Sahm's most formative early rock & roll efforts, you should definitely make it a point to check out the CD San Antonio Rock (Norton), which shines the spotlight on his hard to track down 45s cut between the years '57 and '61.

Andrew Brown's illuminating liner notes set the stage for the smouldering Why, Why, Why, a San Antonio favorite and Doug's big breakout local hit: "....Doug (now a senior in high school) recorded Why, Why, Why at Texas Sound Studios in early 1960 with the great tenor saxophonist Rocky Morales and his band, the Mar-Kays.

Why, Why, Why was the first big hit, Doug told Deron Bissett. "Funky record, I love it. It was goin' up the charts when school was out. It bugged me 'cause then I couldn't go to school to say, 'Hey look at me, boy....cruise around the drive-in and say 'Hey, I got a hit. What are you doing?' "

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Since Greg G sent Doug south of the border in an earlier post today, I thought this was an appropriate time to take another excursion down there, this time in the form of a single-only song from the Kris Kristofferson film Cisco Pike, "Michoacan".

I guess that working with the Crazy Cajun Huey P. Meaux wasn't quite enough crazy for Sahm, because "Michoacan" was co-written by the king of crazy, Kim Fowley.

Sir Doug actually appeared in Cisco Pike, which features a PRIMO cast of 70s performers, from Karen Black to Harry Dean Stanton to Antonio Fargas, and is almost sure to be playing at a Fool's Paradise double feature near you in the near future. As a teaser, here's Doug's scene (about three minutes in), talking about how much he hates complicated California psychedelic music and prefers to keep it simple. He also, unsurprisingly, needs some weed.

The song itself is such a crazy, happy goofed up bounce, and the scene in the studio is so positively loco, that for a while the word "Michoacan", divorced from any geographical context or even an upper case letter, became a code adjective among me and my friends for a messed up but kind of awesome situation, as in: "That party last night was pretty michoacan." This has of course taken on darker meanings since Michoacan became one of the central spots of south-of-the-border drug cartel violence. Surprised this number has not made it into "Breaking Bad".

Speaking of pretty michoacan, check out this photo of Doug Sahm, Steven T. (aka Venus of Venus and the Razor Blades), Question Mark, and Kim Fowley. If that's not the essence of michoacan, I dunno what is.